Atop a hill in the English countryside, Richard Meier conjures a minimalist masterpiece.
As they have since the first Bentley took to the road, many Brits still motor into the countryside to weekend in great country houses. But for guests of a family living in the rolling hills of Oxfordshire, the house at the end of a winding, hedge-lined lane is not a Downton Abbey mansion or a rambling, thatch-covered cottage. What awaits instead is a bracing specimen of white geometric abstraction designed by American architect Richard Meier, so pristine inside that you can see a pin drop.
Just beyond the automated entry gate, visitors steer onto a sweeping drive that curves in a suspenseful tease around the base of a slowly rising meadow. Stretching across its crest, left to right, is a compound of white walls, low and high, set off against a thicket of bushes; sometimes it takes a straight horizontal line to call attention to the beauty of nature’s irregularities.
Master of the white villa, Meier drew his long horizontal line behind a two-storey house by extending walls alongside a pool and tennis court towards a compact cubic guest house. The design brings the entire site to a focus that seems to fix the landscape, pinning it down like an elaborate brooch.
TERMS OF AGREEMENT
This story is from the March/April 2017 edition of AD Architectural Digest India.
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This story is from the March/April 2017 edition of AD Architectural Digest India.
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